'Yet it did seem ... as if fantastic hope could take as strong a hold as Fact' - Hard Times

Wednesday, 21 January 2009

LION KING: THE MUSICAL

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I suppose it's a bit like with performances of Shakespeare: many-faceted, culturally definitive text capable of rich multiple meaning is travestied by look-at-me am-dram idiots peddling a reductive, hackneyed caricature.

I don't mean to go overboard, and it does seem that Mr Hegarty himself was very much involved, but this is like a magnified visual summary of what Antony and the Johnson's could be like (if they were shit), as if someone has just lazily thought:

DRAMA+EMOTIVITY+RAWNESS IN THE MUSIC = CAMPNESS, MELODRAMA AND NUDE FROLICKING IN THE VIDEO

Antony and the Johnson's cover art (see below) always seems to me to do a fantastic job of capturing and augmenting the music's quiet, visceral weirdness, so I really can't see how this video has ended up looking like a below-par Scissor Sisters gig (and it doesn't get much worse than that now, does it friends?).

The tune itself and accompanying album is however almost orientation-questioningly brilliant.